


if you wanted to, girl, we could cross that line

by Anonymous



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 08:44:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20757572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Emily takes a breath, eyes flitting over to the other side of the field where the rest of the team sits, “Is it just me, or is Kelley really touchy lately?”





	if you wanted to, girl, we could cross that line

**Author's Note:**

> song title from Feelings by Lauv
> 
> not my best work but hopefully it generates some feels

She’s in a cab the first time it happens.

Well, first off—they’re pretty drunk. Emily can feel Lindsey’s elbow digging into her side and Mal just won’t stop _talking_. She’s not even really saying anything, just going on and on about how much she loves everyone and literally could not be having a better year, and _wow, can they even believe_—

And when Emily looks up from her knees she can see Uncle Naeher in the front seat, falling asleep under the lid of her snapback. Her eyes drift to the rearview mirror where she can see Kelley politely take both of Mal’s arms and shove them back toward the car door.

“Okay, Mal. I need you to chill.” Emily can feel Lindsey laugh in her ear. And it’s awkward, being jammed between a drunk, sleepy Lindsey and an apparently pissed off Kelley, but she’s making it work.

Mal settles a little, redirecting her attention outside, and Lindsey slumps against the car door, eyes closed contentedly, and apparently Emily’s been hit with whatever Mal was smoking because all she can think about is how much she_ loves _these people. Even Kelley, as annoyed as she is right now. She feels Kelley re-settle in her seat, now closer to Emily in an attempt to escape a handsy Mal.

(Okay, on second thought, maybe Mal was high on Kelley’s perfume? Because it’s downright suffocating. In like, the best way. )

The car swerves for a turn and Emily makes a split-second decision and full-on jellos into Kelley, letting herself drape over her like a comforter and waiting for anyone in the car to laugh. No one does. She feels Kelley stiffen a little and prepares for the post-Mal lecture but is surprised when Kelley just lets her stay there, head on Kelley’s shoulder, hands in Kelley’s lap.

And man she clearly had not thought this shit through: a few beats pass and she can’t decide when the right time to pull back was… a few seconds ago, maybe? She can’t pull back now. It’d be weird now.

See, Kelley and Emily don’t really cuddle. That’s not their thing. Their thing is more like shouting and giggling and choreographing stupid dances—always active activities.

(This is way too passive. It gives Emily a lot of time and space to think about her actions. In like, not a great way.)

At least not a soul is watching them—Naeher’s full on passed out with her mouth open and Mal and Linds are both drifting off on opposite sides of the car, too far gone to give any shits about what’s going on between them. Emily is briefly comforted by the sleeping car, at least until she feels Kelley’s hand shove its way behind her back to come around her waist and pull her closer.

Kelley’s hand settles on her hip and the whole world stops.

(Okay, okay, that’s dramatic. But that’s what it felt like.)

Emily’s heart rate rapidly escalates and she fights the sudden desire to turn over her apple watch and track the speed. She feels ridiculous. Like she’s missed something important. She’ll try her best not to read into it. She’ll get over it. Move on.

But then Kelley’s other hand finds Emily’s in her lap, rubbing at the back of her fingers, and that’s when Emily knows something’s different. Kelley’s fingers are warm and sweaty and Emily tries her best to commit this feeling to memory because she’s not getting more of it. This will have to feed her age-old crush for the rest of her life.

She makes another split second decision and—yes, she’s proud of herself—a rational one: she shuts her eyes. She pretends to sleep, letting herself lay fully on Kelley, trying to even out her breaths. Kelley shifts again, this time, surprisingly, to move Emily more onto her chest. She shifts so that she’s got herself fully wrapped around Emily, her other hand on Emily’s thigh, and Emily grins a little despite herself.

(They ride the rest of the way like that.)

(When she wakes, Kelley extends her a hand, helping her out of the car.)

\+ + +

It keeps happening. The touches.

A hand on her back while they’re standing together at practice, running hands through her hair while they’re seated beside each other, stopping her mid-sentence with a touch on the arm… Kelley initiates every touch and Emily struggles more and more to rationalize them.

It’s just a different stage of their friendship, she thinks. One that she didn’t realize existed and is still getting used to. She vows to put it all out of her mind until—

“So like, can I ask you something?”

Lindsey’s chewing, so it takes her a second to answer. She raises an eyebrow, which is probably answer enough, but Emily doesn’t even really want to ask the question she’s just asked if she can ask, so she waits for explicit confirmation before proceeding.

“Shoot.”

And now, staring down at Lindsey, who has just pulled both her socks off and bitten into her banana, Emily feels a little dumb. Lindsey’s like, super normal. Her brain doesn’t over-process shit like this. She’s gonna think Emily’s insane.

So Emily winces, stalling.

“Dude, what is it?”

“Okay, if I ask this, you have to promise you’re not gonna be weird.”

Lindsey shakes her head, dismissive. “I can’t make promises like that.”

“I just need you not to—“

“Dude, we talked about this: weird is not a specific enough adjective.”

“Fine. I need you to just… be cool.”

“That’s more specific.”

“Shut up.” And at this point Emily’s almost forgotten what she was gonna say anyway so maybe she can just, not say it.

“Emily.” Lindsey’s voice is firm and steady, like a mother’s. Or like Becky’s.

(Yeah, definitely like Becky’s.)

“Fine. Okay. Just… I warned you,” Emily takes a breath, eyes flitting over to the other side of the field where the rest of the team sits, “Is it just me, or is Kelley really touchy lately?”

“Touchy like ‘touchy subject’? Or?” And Emily can’t _not _roll her eyes.

“Touchy like touching people. A lot. Make me spell it out, why don’t you?”

“Dude I’m telling you, you have an adjective problem.”

“Shut up and answer the question.”

And, to her credit, Lindsey really considers it before she answers: “Not like, unusually so.” Emily sighs, and Lindsey narrows her eyes, “Why?”

“Just forget it.”

\+ + +

Weirdly, that helps. The reassurance that it’s not something everyone is picking up on both settles Emily and somewhat excites her.

Part of her is upset, because Lindsey not noticing may speak to the fact that Emily’s insane and her weird and very secret crush is spiraling and… then part of her wakes up well rested from a nap later that day and realizes that there’s a second meaning: if Lindsey hasn’t noticed, maybe it’s because it not something Kelley’s doing with other people. And maybe she’s kept it subtle with Emily for a reason.

Emily’s emboldened by that. Emboldened enough to demand a piggyback ride back to the lockers from Kelley. Bold enough to lean in a little, letting her lips brush Kelley’s ear when she speaks. When Kelley drops her off she gives Emily a little smirk, one that seems like it’s just for her, and Emily’s heart melts a little.

And suddenly it’s like a game. A touching game. A game they’re playing all the time and never talking about: touching skin to skin and seeing how much they can get away with. The more risqué the better.

Kelley posts a photo with her hand on Emily’s thigh and the fans go ballistic. Lindsey screenshots it and sends it to Emily with the message:

** lindssss:** (12:34pm) touchy much? ;)

**sonny <3:** (12:45pm) im not sure what you mean by that adjective

\+ + +

For some reason, later that week, she skips the team outing.

She says it like that because honestly she had just intended on being late to the club and then it got so late that she finally laid back in bed and was kind of like, ready for a night in. She’s going through instagram when she realizes the story Kelley posted was from like, two minutes ago. Which means she and Alex have opted to stay in and watch movies on her laptop. Cool for them.

(Staying in like Kelley and Alex… Is she 30 now? Is that what this means? She shudders a little at the thought.)

She responds to Kelley’s story with a thumbs up emoji and then wanders into the bathroom to brush her teeth. She returns to a few messages:

**miss kelley:** (11:08pm) wait are you here

**miss kelley:** (11:08pm) i don’t see you in mal’s snaps

**miss kelley:** (11:10pm) if you’re here you should come!!! room 906.

She looks herself over once in the mirror and shrugs. Why the hell not?

On the way up the steps she considers the fact that she could’ve changed or like… run a brush through her hair. She decides not to think about it. This is a hang between friends and no one has explicitly implied otherwise. There’s no reason to overthink it.

(…right?)

She knocks on the door and it opens to Alex, who rolls her eyes and lets Emily in.

“What’s Emily doing here?” Alex says in such an accusatory way that Emily actually stops in the doorway, concerned she’s not welcome. Alex raises an eyebrow at that, waving her in as though she’s pissed she even had to invite her in again.

“I invited her.” Kelley says from the bed, curled up in the comforter. She looks like a stuffed animal; like her bones are complete mush and she couldn’t stand if she tried. Emily wants to squeeze her.

“We can’t have just one night without the youths?” Alex says, exasperated, and Emily whips around to look at her, unsure whether she should get to be openly offended. She thinks so. But maybe not, Alex is scary.

Regardless, Kelley seems plenty offended for her. She pats the bed beside her, lifting the comforter up invitingly, “Ignore her.” Emily slips in beside Kelley to a groan from Alex: “Nope, Kel’s in the middle.”

“I’m starting to feel like I’m not wanted here,” Emily quips.

“Nah, I’ll deal. At least it’ll get Kelley to shut up about you. Can’t obsess over you if you’re here in person.”

Kelley makes something of a face at Alex, but Emily mostly misses it as she’s walking all the way around the bed to climb in on Kelley’s other side. She kind of misses it on purpose; deliberately doesn’t look, afraid of what she might see.

When she finally settles in she sees Alex watching her, deliberately clocking her reaction: “Hope I live up to the hype.”

Ugh. What a stupid thing to say. She looks down at her legs, willing the movie to start.

“We should start the movie,” Kelley says, and Emily swears she can feel the tension actively dissipating. Alex flicks off the light and starts _13 Going on 30_, rolling to face Kelley in bed. Kelley faces Alex, too, and Emily sort of struggles to see over her. She moves a little in bed, raising herself up on the pillows so she can see, and that’s when she feels it.

Kelley’s hand reaches back, finding hers. She tugs gently and Emily’s gently coaxed into moving, confused. Once again, her heart rate lets loose, threatening war, and Emily is suddenly afraid she’ll pick the _flight_ response instead of the _fight_. She shimmies forward slowly, gently, and wraps herself around her idol, her best friend, her _crush_, Kelley O’Hara.

Once Emily’s close enough, Kelley’s rests their hands on her ribcage. And thankfully, Kelley’s heartbeat betrays her, too. Emily can feel it pounding away beneath their hands.

(She’s not alone in this.)

(She might pass out.)

\+ + +

She does pass out. She’s not even sure when it happens, but without paying a lick of attention to the movie, she’s suddenly asleep. Maybe it was Kelley’s heartbeat: racing, dancing… and in the end, hypnotic.

She wakes only briefly in the night, when Alex and Kelley shift. She opens an eye to the light, immediately turning over and finding sleep again. But not before…

“She likes you too. She has to, just look at her.”

“Shut up, Alex.”

“I’m just saying: she comes when you call, plays with you, laughs with you, _readily spoons you_. I’m not sure what else you need. Shit or get off the pot, O’Hara.”

And, conscious or not, Emily smiles a little in her sleep. Especially when she feels Kelley crawl in beside her, pulling Emily into her arms.

\+ + +

Emily wakes to chilling anxiety.

Well, first there was bliss. Turning over to see Kelley’s pillow-creased face and drool. Realizing their legs are tangled. Realizing that, try as she might, she might never be able to live this one down—her crush was too big now. Too well fed. Basically the Clifford The Big Red Dog of crushes.

She feels the warmth overtake her and is almost back to sleep when her brain suddenly starts working: where she is, what she’s doing… her captain sleeping just feet away. A team that she wants to win more than anything. More than she wants herself, individually, to be happy. Maybe more than she wants—

(Not more than she wants Kelley. And just like that, her heart is hammering in her chest.)

She detangles herself slowly, extracting herself from bed and rushing out without a sound. She runs down the hall and keys into her room, finding Rose stretched out like a starfish in her sleep.

And thank god Rose isn’t awake because Emily has no idea what she’d say. She rushes into the bathroom, shutting the door and taking deep breaths.

(That just happened.)

(Holy Fuck.)

\+ + +

At breakfast, Emily takes a seat next to Lindsey and shuts the fuck up. People keep looking to her, expecting her to jump in to the conversation, but honestly everyone can just go fuck off for a bit. She needs this.

She’s picking at her avocado toast and halfheartedly listening to Mal’s story when she feels someone slide in on her other side.

The smell hits her first. Kelley.

She sees Alex smile knowingly as she slides in across the table and that helps not at all, honestly. The nerves are back in abundance. She’s never dated a teammate. Never really dated, honestly. She doesn’t feel prepared. Maybe there’s more prepwork involved. It feels like she should have to read a handbook first. A handbook on how not to fuck this up.

A hand slips into hers under the table.

She hopes she’s not totally flushed. Sometimes her face gets so red and there’s just so little she can do to control it and honestly it’s the worst when she’s in her bright red kit but—

“This okay?” Kelley whispers in her ear, and suddenly Emily’s looking up at her, and all of her worries fade away.

And Kelley’s gorgeous. Just stunning. Even an oversized Under Armor hoodie with her hair all piled in a bun on her head.

Mostly though, Emily looks at Kelley and feels safe. She nods without question, leaning into it, smiling like a lunatic for the rest of breakfast.

\+ + +

At this rate, Emily’s gonna be the last on the field.

And well, that’s fine. It’s not like she’s gonna see any minutes, anyway. She knows that’s negative, but… it just is what it is. She’s trying to make peace with it.

She laces up her cleats and looks up to see Kelley O’Hara standing above her, looking at her like she hung the earth, moon, and stars. Flattered and a little overwhelmed, Emily takes her hand and stands, looking around the empty locker room.

“Shouldn’t you be out on the field?”

Kelley just smiles. “Forgot something.”

She leans in, kissing Emily. The kiss is short but tender, and Emily smiles into it. “Oh yeah,” another kiss, “can’t forget that.”

Kelley pulls back, and they walk out into the tunnel together. They smile like the complete losers they are.

“Hey, break a leg.”

“Thanks.”

“No seriously, break a leg. I could use the minutes.”

Kelley shoves her, then pulls her back in and kisses her on the forehead.

“Loser.”


End file.
